Free Emily Feather and the Secret Mirror by Holly Webb

and she had already been asleep, and dreamed herself to another place.
    Then she stopped, seeing a pool of dark shadow under the moonlit window, by the seat. It was where Gruff had been sitting as her mother cast the spell. Where she had moved him, so that he wasn’t caught up in it.
    The spell wasn’t fixed to Emily! It was fixed to the bed where her mother expected her to sleep, and dream. Emily looked at the cushions on the window seat, frowning to herself. Could it really be that simple?
    She had a moment of guilt as she curled herself up on the cushions. Her mother had trusted her – they had never thought that Emily might purposely dream her way out of the house. But she shook it away.
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    Emily had never tried to dream before. It was surprisingly difficult. She dreamed almost every night, although she didn’t usually remember what had happened in her dreams. Only glimpses of odd journeys or places.
    In the weeks before she’d found out about her family, her dreams had been even stranger than usual. She had seen things that felt real, while she knew that they couldn’t be. She understood now that she had been gradually slipping through the thin veil between home and the other world where her family truly belonged.
    She wriggled herself back into the cushions that she’d piled up and tried to imagine herself into the painting. But that was all she was doing – imagining. She could open her eyes any time and still be in her room. It was useless. And the more she worried about the girl and the hunters, the more useless it got. Emily stared miserably into the black glass of the window, her eyes dry and itchy with tiredness. She was weary, but she just couldn’t seem to let go and sleep. It was so late now that the night was thickly dark through the window, so dark that she could only make out the faint orange glow of the street lamp across the road. The dirty yellow light mixed with the shadows inside the glass, building great towers of darkness that piled up against the sky.
    Emily blinked, and shivered, as she watched the lights travelling slowly around the battlements of the dark palace. It seemed just the sort of place that whoever sent out the huntsmen would live. There would be night-dark dogs with burning eyes, and teeth that shone in the blackness under the trees…
    She was there. The smell of woods was all around her, and she could feel dry leaves under her bare feet.
    The trees rustled and creaked as the dogs padded hungrily under them, and Emily drew herself behind a massive trunk, hoping that the huntsmen’s hounds would never smell a dream-girl.
    She should have been pleased that she had managed to dream her way in after all, but she was too scared. She almost wished she was still awake. What happened if you got eaten in a dream?
    One of the dogs came sniffing hungrily past her hiding place, and Emily held her breath. If she breathed out, she would scream… She could hear its hoarse panting getting closer and closer, and she dug her fingers into the tree bark and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Should she run? Or stay stone still, and trust to it only being a dream?
    At last the dog seemed to give up, and she heard its paws padding heavily away through the bracken. Emily let out a shaky breath and started to edge slowly around the tree. She had to find out where she was. Had those dogs been hunting the girl? She suspected so – in which case she would need to follow them. She would have to try and get in front of them again. The thought made Emily feel sick, but she had to find her.
    She inched her way carefully around the tree, pressing her fingers into the ridged bark. It seemed so safe here now, and the bark was almost friendly under her fingers. She hated to pull herself away. Reluctantly, she lifted her hand from the tree trunk – and touched something warm, something that flinched away from her in shock.
    Emily stifled her scream, burying her